Friday December 30, 2005 SGN.org |
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Volume 33 Issue 52 |
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Wednesday, Jan 07, 2009
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Tour De Life by Beau Burriola |
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| HERO NO MORE | ||
| "I always placed you on a pedestal," Adam wrote. If he only knew, I thought. He's asked me for advice for a long time and for years I've obediently told him what I thought, even though I'm completely unqualified to give any sort of advice.
"You are always heroic, courageous, optimistic, wise&" the unfamiliar adjectives continued to prattle off endlessly and my eyes blurred on the screen. Who was he talking about? Surely not me. There was a time in my life when I believed I had all the answers. When it came to people, love, life, success, Gay happiness - I knew everything and I was quick to talk about my knowledge, build myself up and end up somebody's big, Queer hero. How quickly that all changes when you find yourself passed out one drunk evening near your front door with a Neighbours stamp smudged on your hand, woken up by a kindly Lesbian neighbor and her dog. Hero? Come on. ****** "You're that Gay guy that writes the column, aren't you?" the man said, but I couldn't see his face. I had been drinking too much and couldn't pay much attention to him anyway, so I didn't respond. I just stood there. "That's him," Nick answered for me, and then the memory ends there, phasing out into the doomp-doomp-doompy music of some Gay anthem. It was months before I went out again, sure that someone would point me out and say "Hey, that's the drunk kid that writes the column. HA HA fucking HA." ****** So now we are on the cusp of 2006. I cleaned up my life and became boring. I became an urban hermit writer, feeling quite self-righteous and way too old. I've been a good boy and focused on work, school, and all the things people said I was good at and patted me on the back for. I fell into the role and played the part. No more. Now I'm leaping off the pedestal. I'm really no goddamn Gay hero and I'm not sure I can be or want to be. I'm just a guy who got HIV and didn't mind saying so and I hope that isn't so uncommon. I don't think that makes me a hero; I think it makes me human. The truth is I don't have all the answers. The truth is there are times I still get drunk or go dancing until the break of day. The truth is there are times my life is screwed up enough to where I shouldn't be giving advice to anyone. The truth is there are things that, if people knew, they would sure not call me a "hero." I'm a guy who experiences the same shit as everyone else, but who sometimes writes it down. My New Year's resolution this year is simple: to continue to be me, unapologetically. No more am I going to try to wear the good boy hat people put on me and fit some bizarre part. No more am I going to try to live up to anyone's idea but my own. No more am I going to be afraid to go out there and screw up or have fun because of the way people will look at me. If I run into Dan Savage or Mayor Nickels or President Bush on New Year's Eve and I'm sloppy drunk, I won't have some snappy, classy, intelligent thing to say to any of them. I'll probably just vomit all over their well-pressed shirts. I'm going to make mistakes, I'm not always going to meet expectations, and I'm not always some eloquent person with some "important message" to relay. I'm as screwed up as the rest of us and I will continue to be, but now I just won't give a fuck who sees. This ole Gay world can make you set a lot of expectations on yourself, but at the end of the day the only person you really have to answer to is yourself. I've lived long enough to realize that you can spend your whole life giving a damn about what other people think and at the end of the day only have wasted time. I'm not wasting my time any more. No more. I'm leaping off - 2006, here I come! Honest as ever, but hero no more. (Beau Burriola is a local writer coming out of his cave back into the big, wide Gay world. E-mail him at: beaubrent@gmail.com) |
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International Readers |
 
It's new!A blog created by the SGN staff so you can be heard |
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"Putting on the Ritz |
The Beauty of Freedom through |
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